Governing bodies of health systems and health institutions around the world are dominated by men. The lack of female leaders within these governance structures creates an unbalanced approach to how best to create meaningful health outcomes and why institutions are not being gender-responsive. Gender-responsive governance in practice, means ensuring that governance decision-makers respond to the different needs of their internal and external clients, based on gender.

Please join Management Sciences for Health (MSH) at the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA), May 18-23, 2014, in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHA is the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), and is attended by delegations from all WHO Member States.

This year, six MSH representatives will attend as part of the 60-plus-person Global Health Council (GHC) delegation.

MSH will co-host three side events focusing on the role of universal health coverage (May 20), chronic diseases (May 20), and governance for health (May 21) in the post-2015 framework.

Youth delegates at the World Conference on Youth in Hambantota, Sri Lanka.Photo credit: Sarah Lindsay/MSH.

Good governance is like a large elephant, Ahmed Adamu, Chairperson of the Commonwealth Youth Council, said.
One person can touch the trunk, one the stomach, and one the tail, and they have had very different experiences with the elephant. Around the world, everyone has different experiences and different perceptions of good governance.
With this anecdote, Adamu, a speaker at the plenary, “Achieving Good Governance and Accountability” at the 2014 World Conference on Youth, captures the challenges of defining good governance often cited in more academic terms.
Though the concept of good governance is up for interpretation, there is consensus across countries, generations, and sectors that it is sorely needed. According to a consultation by Restless Development with young people in 12 countries , overall, governance is their most important issue that should be addressed in the post-2015 dialogue. And while good governance might be their most pressing concern, according to Subinay Nandy, Sri Lanka’s Resident Coordinator to the United Nations, it is young people themselves who are the most important tool international agencies can use to guarantee good governance.

This blog post is part of a series leading up to the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland from May 19 – 24, 2014. In conjunction with the WHA, the Leadership, Management & Governance (LMG) Project will host a side session with global health leaders titled, “Governance for Health: Priorities for Post-2015 and Beyond”. This blog series will offer insight on how good governance in the health system can result in stronger health impact as we move beyond the Millennium Development Goals. This post originally appeared on the LMGforHealth Blog.

While substantial progress in the Millennium Development Goals will have been achieved in many countries by 2015, reductions in preventable maternal and infant deaths lags, and the persistent struggle of disease burdens from communicable and non-communicable diseases is worrying.